The Devil You Know (14 page)

Nana sat at the table’s head with Kathryn to her left and Fera to her right. Jacq sat beside Fera and Van beside Kathryn. I sat on Jacq’s other side, opposite Aunt Helena, who sat beside Van. There were seven of us, but the table was large and almost half empty.

Van made pleased sounds as he dug into a plate of butterbeans and ham hock, while I picked through my vegetables, trying to find something not slathered in bacon grease. Jacq eyed the massive container of gravy dubiously but dutifully asked for another biscuit. A few minutes prior, I’d whispered in her ear that I’d told my family about our dating. Now, to my amusement, my already polite detective was being extra courteous. She said please, thank you, ma’am, if I may, and every other mannerly thing she could think of. It was good my father was in Hell—otherwise, my diligent, unexpectedly nervous suitor might have asked his permission to
go-a-courting
. Then I’d be obliged to shoot her on principle.

Denoir’s Queen very solicitously passed Jacq the biscuit plate. Light glinted from her finger, drawing my eyes to the ring there. The top of the ring was wide and etched with a very familiar blazing sun emblem. I frowned. I had seen that same design somewhere recently.

The Queen drew me from my thoughts when she asked, “Might I inquire as to your health, young Catherine?” She tried to smile, but it looked as if her lips had forgotten which way was up.

I didn’t bother to return the smile. “You might, but I wish you wouldn’t.” Someone kicked me under the table, and I glared at my aunt, whose expression as she daintily ate her turnips was too innocent to be believed.

“Cate,” Nana muttered, “could you at least pretend to be respectful?”

There were a dozen replies I could give to that, one that advised muttering was pointless when sitting at a table with creatures whose hearing was better than our own, but I wisely kept them to myself. I sighed. “I’m almost well. Thank you, Your Majesty. I’ll be the same as I ever was in a day or two.”
Whatever…whoever…that was.

“Is that a good thing?” mumbled Fera around her biscuit. Jacq squeezed my hand.

The Queen nodded her silver head graciously. “Please, family should never bow to such formality. Call me Kathryn.”

I restrained a snort. She didn’t know the Delacys. This family was
all
about formality.

Murmuring my thanks, I returned my gaze to my plate. A boring block of conversation followed where Van asked about the vegetables and their origins. In full lecture mode, Aunt Helena answered each question eagerly, making me glad we weren’t having chitlins. Some things I could live without hearing at the dinner table.

As soon as they ran out of veggies to discuss, everyone fell silent again. Outside the windows, frogs croaked loudly, accentuating the silence.

Fera patted her thigh impatiently. “Looks like rain.”

Several people grunted their agreement, the only sound the clatter of cutlery against porcelain. The weather? Really? We had come to this? If I could have made everyone chew faster, I would have. I
almost
felt bad for not telling Fera who our guests were before they’d arrived. Almost.

“Yeah,” I said, thickening my accent, “a real gully washer.” My aunt, catching my sarcasm, glared at me, and I moved my shins out of the line of fire. I looked up at the ceiling, praying for a fast-forward button.

As Nana and the Queen discussed the number of rainy days we got a year, Jacq’s head started to fall toward her chest. I pinched her thigh. She placed her hand over mine, whispering, “I’m not asleep, cher. I was trying to see whose foot that was.”

“Whose foot what?” I ducked my head to see a large foot wearing only a navy sock currently trying to work its way up my love’s leg. I put down my fork and glared at the man opposite her. “Vanguard!” I hissed, thankful my grandmothers weren’t paying us any attention.

Van looked from me to Jacq to Fera. He smiled charmingly. “My apologies, I seem to have the wrong woman.” Between the tan skin, expensive suit, light blue eyes, and strong chin, he looked like the playboy he acted. But the smile and good looks weren’t having the intended effect.

Fera glared. “Don’t even think about it, demon boy. My after-dinner plans don’t involve getting funky with you.”

Puzzled, Van looked to me.

I sighed. Again. “Keep your hands and feet—” Seeing his eyes light with the challenge, I added, “—and
all
other body parts to yourself. She’s not interested.”

His face fell. “Certainly. I would never impinge upon an unresponsive lady’s generosity.”

I rolled my eyes. I had the feeling Fera would be anything but unresponsive if Van tried to play footsy with her. More likely, the sheriff would whip out her gun and shoot off his toes. Goddess knows I would have dropped him at least twice now had there been room for my stun gun in this dress.

Van’s gaze shifted away, not bothering to linger on Jacq. Apparently, my love didn’t pique his fancy. He looked at my aunt briefly. Then his hopeful face turned to me.

“Oh no.” I held up my hand in protest. “Kissing cousins went out of style in the South a long time ago.”

“Strange.” He stabbed a brussels sprout, putting the entire thing in his mouth, crunching on it with delight. “It’s still quite common in Hell.”

“That explains a great deal,” Fera commented dryly.

I bit the inside of my cheek. In my head, Jacq was laughing. Even Aunt Helena was holding back a grin.

Loosening up, Fera told us about her attempts to reopen the search for my mother. For the first time thus far, I listened eagerly, weighing in with my own suggestions. Even Kathryn had tips for searching other realms using the gates. So maybe I was wrong. Dinner might not be quite as dull as I thought.

During a lull in the conversation, not giving up, Van looked to me again and smiled that come-hither smile. Jacq bared her teeth, and Van glared back. My aunt touched Van’s sleeve, drawing his attention away by asking his opinion on the search we’d conducted thus far. I released a breath of relief, taking my earlier regrets back.

I’d been dying of boredom, but if it meant Van was going to get feisty, I’d be happy with more dullness. Van broke from my aunt’s grasp long enough to sneak another glance my way. I reached down for the knife strapped to my thigh. Jacq grabbed my hand and held it tightly. I began to pray a very different sort of prayer, one that involved patience and a bloody battle-ax. With or without the goddess’s help, very soon I would explain something to my new cousin.

Whoever had said you had to take family as they come hadn’t meant “in bed.” We might be a bit country, a lot backwoods, and completely Southern, but we weren’t incestuous. At least, not on this side of the gates. For that apparently you had to go a little further south than I was willing to travel.

* * *

Just up the road…

Once. Twice. Bright lights flashed in Cassie’s eyes. Gravel crunched as an unfamiliar car pulled to the empty roadside, stopping behind the small trailer hitched to her own vehicle. She moved to her feet, using one hand to shield her eyes while the other tightly gripped the tire iron, hiding it behind her back. Her heart pounded, adrenaline surging as a tall figure, hidden behind the car’s bright lights, emerged.

Once not long ago, Cassie wouldn’t have known fear. Her magic was strong, her body tough, and her determination unsurpassable. But that was before she had someone, two someones, relying upon her. Before she had something to protect, to live for.

Cassie silently cursed her lack of foresight and her great-aunt Lucine, the Witch Prime, for rushing them along on this ridiculous journey. She believed both were responsible for her inability to find her cell charger. She wasn’t sure who or what was to blame for the spare tire that was as flat as the tire it had just replaced, but she sensed magic at work and didn’t dare use her own magic to inflate the blasted thing. A misfired spell so close to the gas tank would end their night
permanently
.

As the figure approached, Cassie moved forward, blocking the backseat’s half-lowered window and the view of its sleeping occupants.

“Need help?” an accented female voice called.

Cassie’s immediate relief was short-lived. She of all people knew women were as dangerous, if not more so, than men. But the relief returned when the stranger stepped into the light and Cassie saw the phone in her hand.

“Yes, please. May I borrow your phone? I’m afraid my spare is done for.” Cassie forced a smile, trying not to look away, though the headlights were painfully bright. She could just make out shoulder-length, wavy dark hair and blue eyes.

“Certainly.” The stranger clicked something in her other hand, and the car lights extinguished.

Suddenly blind, Cassie tensed, the only light the phone in the stranger’s hand. The moon, still nearly full, was hidden behind clouds, leaving the area so far from city lights cloaked in shadows.

That accented voice, now a few feet closer, said, “Sorry, I’m not used to these American vehicles. Here.” The stranger extended the phone, its blue glow trailing behind it as Cassie’s eyes blurred with weariness.

Wiping a sweaty palm on her shorts, Cassie took the phone.

Gem stepped back, giving the nervous woman, a witch if she was reading the scent right, some space. But the woman just looked at the device blankly.

Blinking back a sudden, unexpected flood of tears, Cassie looked up helplessly. Finally able to make out the stranger’s concerned face, she whispered, “I don’t know who to call.”

Gem took a small step forward. She could hear the woman’s heart beating rapidly, along with two slower beats. One was beginning to beat faster. She didn’t want to frighten either the witch or whoever was waking within the car.

Gem told herself her courtesy would have been extended to anyone, woman or man, who had been stranded on a dark road alone. It had nothing to do with the witch’s extraordinary loveliness. With pale hair and even paler skin, the woman looked more like an ice maiden from Gem’s homeland than she herself did. But there was an intensity in the witch’s eyes and a hardness around the edges that said this woman would not shatter with the first misstep. Under this foreign land’s scent of pine and sweet clover, Gem could smell the pale-haired woman. She smelled of the cold wild mountains.

She smelled of home.

“Tell me what you need,” Gem said softly.

Cassie snorted, wiping away a tear. “Unless you can raise the dead, than you’d better ask a simpler question.”

Gem winced. The small smile she’d placed on her face to ease the woman slipped.

The frightened witch didn’t notice, continuing on more to herself than to the stranger, “We must be near the Delacys’ drive. That means the Wellsy house is just a little farther on. The Delacys could take us the rest of the way, if I could remember their number.” Cassie’s mind blanked when she tried to remember where she had packed the papers with Helena Delacy’s contact information.

“Cate Delacy’s number is in my phone,” Gem said. Cate had given her a full contingent of numbers, including their home line. “But if you need transportation, I happily offer my services. I am on my way to the Delacys. A small distance further is no trouble.”

Cassie opened her mouth to decline.

“Mama?” an anxious voice cried from the car.

Concerned, Cassie turned, keeping the tire iron hidden and her eyes on Gem, who’d taken another step back. “Shh, Alex. Don’t wake Car.”

“But I’m scared.” The little voice wavered, reminding Cassie that the children were as exhausted as she, if not more so.

Something rustled as the child moved within the car. Cassie said quickly, “There’s no reason to be scared. We’re almost to Popi’s house. Go back to sleep.”

“But Popi’s not there. He’s gone. And there’s vampires coming…and something else…something bad in the woods.”

Both women’s eyes widened, but for different reasons. Cassie knew her child’s special abilities. It took a mere second to confirm that indeed something…actually several somethings with different magical signatures from different directions were approaching. Gem’s first thought was the child somehow knew her identity, but this was quickly superseded by her own magic’s warning. Still, it wasn’t the approaching Kin that concerned her but the two, possibly three other powers moving toward them from above the woods. Unlike the Kin, those darker things would not obey the Council’s laws regarding harming mortals.

Gem said urgently, “Please get in the car and stay there until I tell you it is safe.”

Cassie huffed and pulled a metal bar from behind her back. Green magic coated its surface. She said sternly but calmly, “Alex, stay in the car and put your cuff on.” Alex couldn’t have sensed anything while wearing the bracelet, which was why the child hated it. But it would also hide Alex’s presence from whatever was approaching. “If Car wakes up, you keep him there. You hear? It’s gonna be okay, baby.” Cassie waited until Alex agreed before turning to her unexpected protector, saying simply, “In or out?”

Gem turned her gaze from where she’d been scanning the woods to the woman, noting the way her cheeks had flushed but her heart had steadied. This one was no stranger to battle. “What?”

“In or out? If it comes to it, I’ll circle the car. Nothing gets near my children while I’m still alive. Do you want to be within the barrier or without?”

Gem stared at the woman. The witch was offering to protect her, a stranger, from a group of unknown vampires and something possibly worse. Damn, her father had been right. These Americans really were crazy…or insanely brave.

“Out,” Gem said determinedly, putting her car keys on the car’s low roof. She let the folded metal rod she always carried up her sleeve slide into her palm, then flicked her wrist, extending the magically-reinforced titanium to its four foot length, locking the pieces into place. She twirled it, letting the whir as it sliced through the air calm her. The weapon had been a gift from her father. He’d had its magic tinted a slight pink to honor her long-gone mother. Whenever Gem held the weapon, she felt their strength helping her, their wisdom guiding her. She felt their spirits tug at her and knew what she must do. Turning back to the witch, she pulled the handgun from the small of her back. “Do you know how to use one of these?”